"Shadow Cabinet of Michael Foot Michael Foot was Leader of the Opposition from 4 November 1980, following his victory in the 1980 leadership election, to 2 October 1983, when he was replaced by Neil Kinnock at the 1983 leadership election. The 1980 election was triggered by James Callaghan's loss at the 1979 general election, and Foot's own disastrous defeat in the 1983 general election. Until 2011, the Labour MPs elected the bulk of the membership of the Shadow Cabinet. The leader was expected to assign portfolios to those elected, but was able to assign portfolios to MPs not elected to"
"Three future Leaders of the Labour Party (Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Jeremy Corbyn) were first elected as Members of Parliament at this election—two of them would later hold the office of Prime Minister, whilst Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015. Former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Shirley Williams, Bill Rodgers, Joan Lestor and Tony Benn left Parliament as a result of this election, although Benn would return in a by-election the following year, and Lestor at the following general election. Michael Foot was elected leader of the Labour Party in 1980, replacing James Callaghan. The election of Foot signalled"
"which led to the exile of Amin to Saudi Arabia. However, 18 months after Labour lost power in 1979, the staunchly left-wing politician Michael Foot was elected party leader, despite vocal opposition from Labour Party moderates (including Owen), sparking a crisis over the party's future. Michael Foot's election as Labour party leader indicated that the party was likely to become more left-wing, and in 1980 committed itself to withdrawing from the EEC without even a referendum (as Labour had carried out in 1975). Labour also endorsed unilateral nuclear disarmament and introduced an electoral college for leadership elections, with 40% of"
"1983 Labour Party (UK) leadership election The 1983 Labour Party leadership election was an election in the United Kingdom for the leadership of the Labour Party. It occurred when former leader Michael Foot resigned after winning only 209 seats at the 1983 general election, a loss of 60 seats compared to their performance at the previous election four years earlier. This was the worst showing for Labour since 1931. Neil Kinnock was elected Leader with 71% of the Electoral College vote; runner-up Roy Hattersley stood simultaneously for Deputy Leader and was elected as Deputy. The election took place at Labour"
"long way behind in terms of seats. Despite this, Foot was very critical of the Alliance, accusing them of ""siphoning"" Labour support and enabling the Tories to win more seats. Foot resigned days after the bitter election defeat, and was succeeded as leader on 2 October by Neil Kinnock; who had been tipped from the outset to be Labour's choice of new leader. Foot took a back seat in Labour politics after 1983 and retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, when Labour lost to the Tories (led by John Major) for the fourth election in"
"Michael Foot became leader of the Labour Party in 1980, abolition of the House of Lords became a part of the party's agenda; under his successor, Neil Kinnock, however, a reformed Upper House was proposed instead. In the meantime, the creation of hereditary peerages (except for members of the Royal Family) has been arrested, with the exception of three creations during the administration of the Conservative Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. Whilst some hereditary peers were at best apathetic, the Labour Party's clear commitments were not lost on Merlin Hanbury-Tracy, 7th Baron Sudeley, who for decades was considered an expert"
"Kinnock resigned as leader after a fourth successive Labour defeat at the hands of John Major in the 1992 election. He resigned as leader shortly afterwards, paving the way for John Smith. Labour Deputy Leadership Election, 1983 1983 Labour Party (UK) leadership election The 1983 Labour Party leadership election was an election in the United Kingdom for the leadership of the Labour Party. It occurred when former leader Michael Foot resigned after winning only 209 seats at the 1983 general election, a loss of 60 seats compared to their performance at the previous election four years earlier. This was the"
"imprisoned for fraud, and Sir Eric Miller, who later committed suicide while under police investigation for corruption. The Labour Party held an election to replace Wilson as leader of the Party (and therefore Prime Minister). Six candidates stood in the first ballot; in order of votes they were: Michael Foot, James Callaghan, Roy Jenkins, Tony Benn, Denis Healey and Anthony Crosland. In the third ballot on 5 April, Callaghan defeated Foot in a parliamentary vote of 176 to 137, thus becoming Wilson's successor as Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party, and he continued to serve as Prime Minister"
"of election by electoral college involving the individual members and trade unions. His resignation ensured that his successor would be elected by MPs only. After a campaign that laid bare the deep internal divisions of the parliamentary Labour Party, Michael Foot narrowly defeated Denis Healey on 10 November in the second round of the election to succeed Callaghan as party leader. Foot had been a relatively late entrant to the contest and his decision to stand ended the chances of Peter Shore. In 1982, along with his friend, Gerald Ford, he co-founded the annual AEI World Forum. In 1983, he"
"team – it ought to be Kinnock and Hattersley"" while Gavin Laird, general secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, backed Hattersley as leader, Kinnock as his deputy. Of the four contenders who stood to replace Foot, Kinnock was favoured to win. The results of the election, held at Labour Party Conference, were: Neil Kinnock won the election with an outright majority and Roy Hattersley became his deputy, beating Michael Meacher. Kinnock remained leader until 1992. Kinnock fought in two further elections, both unsuccessfully. He failed to beat Margaret Thatcher in the 1987 general election despite gaining some seats."
"1983 Labour Party (UK) deputy leadership election A deputy leadership election for the Labour Party in the United Kingdom took place on 2 October 1983 to replace incumbent Deputy Leader Denis Healey. Healey had served in the position since 1980, becoming deputy leader at the same time that Michael Foot became party leader. Foot and Healey had both announced their resignations after the general election on 9 June 1983, in which a disastrous performance left the Labour Party with just 209 seats in parliament. The election was conducted using the Labour party's electoral college. It was won by Roy Hattersley,"
"of the Party until a new leader is elected. If a vacancy in the leadership occurs while the Labour Party is in government, then the Cabinet, in consultation with the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, chooses a new leader, who serves until a new leader is elected. To date, the only Deputy Leaders who have gone on to become the elected leader of the Labour Party are Clement Attlee and Michael Foot. Margaret Beckett briefly served as Labour leader following the unexpected death of John Smith in 1994. Harriet Harman was leader after Gordon Brown resigned in 2010"
"1983 election, Labour suffered a landslide defeat, winning only 27.6% of the vote and securing just 209 seats. This was their worst performance at a general election since 1918. Labour won only half a million votes more than the SDP-Liberal Alliance, which had attracted the votes of many moderate Labour supporters, although the Alliance only won 23 seats. Michael Foot criticised the Alliance for ""siphoning"" Labour support and allowing the Tories to win more seats. Michael Foot resigned and was replaced as leader by Neil Kinnock who was elected on 2 October 1983 and progressively moved the party towards the"
"Foot, the leader of the Labour Party. Foot's predecessor, James Callaghan, had offered Clements the chance to stand for Labour in a safe seat in East London in the 1979 general election. Clements had declined the offer, insisting on a selection ballot, which he lost narrowly. After Foot's resignation following Labour's landslide defeat in the 1983 general election, Clements continued in a similar role for the new leader, Neil Kinnock, although his title was officially that of ""executive officer"". It was said of Clements that he was ""Kinnock's closest ally and a shaper of Labour's strategies"". He retired from the"
"election of Michael Foot as leader in 1980, and the leftist policies he espoused, such as unilateral nuclear disarmament, leaving the European Economic Community and NATO, closer governmental influence in the banking system, the creation of a national minimum wage and a ban on fox hunting led in 1981 to four former cabinet ministers from the right of the Labour Party (Shirley Williams, William Rodgers, Roy Jenkins and David Owen) forming the Social Democratic Party. Benn was only narrowly defeated by Healey in a bitterly fought deputy leadership election in 1981 after the introduction of an electoral college intended to"
"although economic growth was now re-established following the recession of 1980 and 1981. The Labour opposition, which changed leader from James Callaghan to Michael Foot in 1980, was in no position to exploit the situation and mount a threat to the Conservative government's power. The change of leader saw the party shift dramatically to the left, and in 1981 a host of disenchanted Labour MP's formed the breakaway Social Democratic Party. The new party swiftly formed an alliance with the Liberals with a view to forming a coalition government at the next election. Roy Jenkins, leader of the SDP, worked"
"supporting the candidacy of the more traditionalist Tribunite John Silkin and then urging Silkin supporters to abstain on the second, run-off, ballot. He was known as a left-winger, and gained prominence for his attacks on Margaret Thatcher's handling of the Falklands War in 1982, although it was in fact this conflict which saw support for the Conservative government increase, and contribute to its landslide re-election the following year. After Labour's landslide defeat in June 1983, Michael Foot resigned as leader aged seventy, and from the outset it was expected that the much younger Kinnock would succeed him. He was finally"
"the Labour Party's leftward tendencies under Michael Foot. On 22 January 1982 he resigned the Labour whip and he subsequently (in March 1982) joined the defection of moderate Labour MPs to the newly founded Social Democratic Party. He lost his seat at the 1983 general election and returned to writing and broadcasting which, indeed, he had continued during his parliamentary career. At Oxford, Magee had mixed with poets as well as politicians and in 1951 published a volume of verse through the Fortune Press. The publisher did not pay its writers and expected them to buy a certain number of"
"was prominent) together. In 1980, the Labour Party conference was dominated by factional disputes and what Callaghan regarded as Bennite motions. Callaghan resigned as party leader late that year and was replaced by Michael Foot, a left-winger who by then had distanced himself from Benn but failed to transmit this to the media or the voters. The following year, Denis Healey only narrowly won the deputy leadership in a contest with Benn. In 1981, thirty MPs on the right-wing of the Labour Party defected to found the Social Democratic Party, which formed an alliance with the Liberal Party and opinion"
"Conservative policies, turning the Conservative Party into an economically liberal party. At the 1979 general election, she defeated James Callaghan's Labour government following the Winter of Discontent. For all of the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Conservative governments under Thatcher and her successor John Major pursued policies of privatisation, anti-trade-unionism, and, for a time, monetarism, now known collectively as Thatcherism. The Labour Party elected left-winger Michael Foot as their leader in 1980, and he responded to dissatisfaction within the Labour Party by pursuing a number of radical policies developed by its grassroots members. In 1981, several centrist and right-leaning"
"between 1970 and 1974. In April 1972, he stood for the Deputy Leadership of the party, along with Edward Short and Anthony Crosland. Short defeated Foot in the second ballot after Crosland had been eliminated in the first. When, in 1974, Labour returned to office under Wilson, Foot became Secretary of State for Employment. According to Ben Pimlott, his appointment was intended to please the left of the party and the Trade Unions. In this role, he played the major part in the government's efforts to maintain the trade unions' support. He was also responsible for the Health and Safety"
"replacement, with Bernie Grant as his deputy, although they were not selected, with John Smith and Margaret Beckett taking the positions instead. After Smith died in May 1994, Livingstone again put his name down as a potential leader, although withdrew it due to a lack of support. Instead, Tony Blair was selected, with Livingstone predicting that he would be ""the most right-wing leader"" in Labour history. Blair and his supporters sought to reform the party by further expunging leftist elements and taking it to the centre ground, thus creating ""New Labour"", with Blairite Peter Mandelson asserting that hard left figures"
"and economic inequalities in the United Kingdom. As noted by the historian Eric Shaw, ""In the seventeen years that it occupied office, Labour accomplished much in alleviating poverty and misery, and in giving help and sustenance to groups – the old, the sick, the disabled – least capable of protecting themselves in a market economy."" The aftermath of the 1979 election defeat saw a period of bitter internal rivalry in the Labour Party which had become increasingly divided between the ever more dominant left wingers under Michael Foot and Tony Benn (whose supporters dominated the party organisation at the grassroots"
"1980 Labour Party (UK) Shadow Cabinet election Elections to the Labour Party's Shadow Cabinet (more formally, its ""Parliamentary Committee"") took place on 4 December 1980, having been delayed due to the October election of new Party Leader Michael Foot. In addition to the 12 members elected, the Leader (Foot), Deputy Leader (Denis Healey), Labour Chief Whip (Michael Cocks), Labour Leader in the House of Lords (Lord Peart), and Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (Fred Willey) were automatically members. Two winners of the 1979 election were not re-elected: Healey was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, so did not"
"only returned to the Parliamentary Labour Group in 1963, when Harold Wilson became Labour leader after the sudden death of Hugh Gaitskell. Harold Wilson—the subject of an enthusiastic campaign biography by Foot published by Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press in 1964—offered Foot a place in his first government, but Foot turned it down, instead becoming the leader of Labour's left opposition from the back benches. He opposed the government's moves to restrict immigration, join the European Communities (or ""Common Market"" as they were referred to) and reform the trade unions, was against the Vietnam War and Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence,"
"rising unemployment. After the brief stewardship of John Smith, Tony Blair was elected leader following Smith's sudden death from a heart attack in May 1994. He immediately decided to amend Clause IV, dropping Labour's commitment to public ownership of key industries and utilities, along with other socialist policies. Many members of the party were unhappy with the proposed changes and several unions considered using their block vote to kill the motion, but in the end their leaderships backed down and settled for a new clause declaring the Labour Party a ""democratic socialist party"". However, Labour had been ascendant in the"
"branch of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation at Richard Thomas and Baldwins steelworks nominated Michael Foot, who had been a prominent left-wing Labour MP for Plymouth Devonport from 1945 to 1955 and the influential editor of unofficial Labour journal ""Tribune"" since losing his seat. Foot had been one of Bevan's close friends and strongest supporters; for Foot, it was a cause of pride that he could follow Bevan. Foot also had a following among the local party members. Foot's main rival for the nomination was Alderman Frank Whatley, who was nominated by the local branch of the National Union"
"below: 1980 Labour Party (UK) Shadow Cabinet election Elections to the Labour Party's Shadow Cabinet (more formally, its ""Parliamentary Committee"") took place on 4 December 1980, having been delayed due to the October election of new Party Leader Michael Foot. In addition to the 12 members elected, the Leader (Foot), Deputy Leader (Denis Healey), Labour Chief Whip (Michael Cocks), Labour Leader in the House of Lords (Lord Peart), and Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (Fred Willey) were automatically members. Two winners of the 1979 election were not re-elected: Healey was elected Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, so did"
"to Kinnock's negative media image, Labour was defeated at the 1987 and 1992 general elections, and he was succeeded by Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Smith . Shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair became Leader of the Labour Party after John Smith's sudden death from a heart attack in 1994. He continued to move the Labour Party towards the ""centre"" by loosening links with the unions and continuing many of Margaret Thatcher's neoliberal policies. This coupled with the professionalising of the party machine's approach to the media, helped Labour win a historic landslide at the 1997 general election, after eighteen"
"1972 Labour Party (UK) deputy leadership election The 1972 Labour Party deputy leadership election took place on 25 April 1972 after Roy Jenkins resigned as deputy leader over the decision to hold a referendum on Britain's entry into the Common Market. Edward Short, formerly Education Secretary in the government of Harold Wilson, was regarded as a ""unity"" candidate, and won the election over his main rival, the left-winger Michael Foot, who had unsuccessfully stood for the deputy leadership in 1970 and 1971. As a result of the first round, Crosland was eliminated. The remaining two candidates would face each other"
"Beckett would also serve both in the Shadow Cabinet and then the Cabinet throughout Blair's term as leader, eventually becoming the final of the three Foreign Secretaries of the Blair ministries. The next leadership election to take place occurred when Blair resigned in June 2007; this election was won by Gordon Brown, who ran uncontested. Source 1994 Labour Party (UK) leadership election The 1994 Labour Party leadership election was held on 21 July 1994 after the sudden death of the incumbent leader, John Smith, on 12 May. Tony Blair won the leadership and became Prime Minister after winning the 1997"
"1994 Labour Party (UK) deputy leadership election A deputy leadership election for the Labour Party in the United Kingdom took place in 1994, after the sudden death of incumbent leader John Smith. Margaret Beckett was the serving Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, having been elected in 1992, and following Smith's death became the acting leader. Elections were held concurrently for both Leader and Deputy Leader of the Party, with the results announced on 21 July 1994. There were three candidates for Leader: Margaret Beckett, Tony Blair and John Prescott, but out of these three, only Blair did not simultaneously"
"in a second round. 1972 Labour Party (UK) deputy leadership election The 1972 Labour Party deputy leadership election took place on 25 April 1972 after Roy Jenkins resigned as deputy leader over the decision to hold a referendum on Britain's entry into the Common Market. Edward Short, formerly Education Secretary in the government of Harold Wilson, was regarded as a ""unity"" candidate, and won the election over his main rival, the left-winger Michael Foot, who had unsuccessfully stood for the deputy leadership in 1970 and 1971. As a result of the first round, Crosland was eliminated. The remaining two candidates"